


into the heart of the force

by starforged



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Dark Rey, F/M, Gen, Senator Ben Solo, Spoilers, follows along the events prior to Bloodline and TFA leading into it, nothing major yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-02-17 19:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starforged/pseuds/starforged
Summary: Rey had been told she had considerable power from the moment Luke Skywalker had plucked her from Jakku as if she were the last surviving plant in a hostile environment. She didn't know what it meant, until the darkness surrounding Ben Solo found her more susceptible to bend than a boy who had long ago rejected his power.--an AU role reversal where Rey grew up in the academy and betrayed Luke to Snoke and Ben became vital to his mother's Resistance





	1. Part One: Insidious

**Author's Note:**

> heyoooo so who says you can have too many WIPs? the reylo will come along later, after rey is no longer a tiny child

**27 ABY**

Master Luke Skywalker rested a hand on Rey’s shoulder as a ship began its descent towards the landing strip that served as the temple’s one way in and one way out. It was beat up and old, and she was honestly surprised that it still flew after these last five years.

The hand was not a comfort, but more of a pat, a joking warning.

She had tried to steal it once. It hadn’t gone so well.

It hadn’t gone well when she was 8, either, and she had tried to take the only ship that belonged to the temple. The trees still hadn’t recovered from that one.

“We’re going to have visitors today,” he said to her.

“Han Solo is more like an invader than a visitor. We make him nervous,” she said in return. It was with affection, though. There was something about the old man that she couldn’t help but enjoy. Maybe it was because he hadn’t actually murdered her for touching his ship. He always had interesting stories to tell her, things that her master never would.

But around a horde of children with the Force? It was fairly obvious to even the least powerful of them that he didn’t quite _understand_ what it was or how it came to be and what a group of moody, tantrum-filled kids had to do with it.

Still, she liked him.

“It’s not just Han.” There was a twinkle in her master’s eye that she hadn’t seen in a long time. He was usually a jovial man, but this was different. This reminded her of when he found her on Jakku that first time, completely out of place on the backwater planet among the scavengers, thieves, and general riff-raff.

Rey didn’t know much about a lot. She was, after all, only twelve. What she did know were fanciful things, stories and legends and a collection of tidbits gleamed from Han over the years when Chewbacca wasn’t around to hear him telling her it all. What she knew was that Han Solo was a war hero, a smuggler and ace pilot who had come to her master’s aid and helped to shape a war that had no shape to begin with. She knew that Luke Skywalker had a sister, a figure so mythic that Rey sometimes thought of her something like a goddess - a word she had learned from one of her friends here at the temple. Leia Organa was probably what most girls grew up wanting to be.

She knew that, somehow, that scruffy old man Han had managed to marry Leia.

She knew that, the reason her master was suddenly so ecstatic probably lay in the fact that his sister had come to visit.

And Rey tried so hard to ignore the bitter resentment that rose up inside of her at the notion of _family_.

She pressed her lips together in a line, as if that was going to lock everything inside of her. And then she breathed, letting the negativity out as she had been taught. Still, in a nervous fashion, her small hand went to her hair where three little loops still rested. She might not be on Jakku right now, but she wasn’t going to let go of her hopes. She’d return.

Luke’s mechanical fingers squeezed her shoulder gently. “Go on. We’ll be in.”

It was a dismissal, and she was glad for it. Even if she had missed Han and Chewbacca and the old stench of the _Millennium Falcon_ , she didn’t want to see a family reunion.

 

* * *

 

Rey found herself sitting behind the little hut that had been designated as hers in the enclave. It wasn’t grand by any means, but it was hers, and it wasn’t a war relic. Although, she couldn’t help but sometimes miss the hollowed out remains of the AT-ATs. In her lap were the pieces of the lightsaber she was building, a project that had been done and taken apart again a few times now. Except for a couple of the older students, nobody else had quite figured it out.

She didn’t want to set herself apart anymore than she already had. She was clearly something different than the other students, and the attention Luke gave her hadn’t helped. There was animosity, but they were kids.

Her fingers faltered suddenly, and a piece of casing slipped from her hand to her lap and bounced off of her knee.

When she had first met Luke, there had been a current that resounded inside of her, as if it had been cracked open and began to flow. This was similar, and more. It was a flood, confusing and fast. She scrambled to her feet, lightsaber parts clutched to her chest at the same moment that someone came around the side of her hut.

He was tall. That was her first impression of him, how he towered a bit over her when he nearly tripped over her. His face was long and pale and serious. Surprise seemed to have etched its way into his face as he looked down at her.

“Hi,” Rey said, wary.

It wasn’t that he was a stranger. It was the bolts of power that had come along with the flood of the Force inside of her. She was more aware of herself and the world around her than she normally was, from the tingling in her toes to the sweat that rolled down the back of her neck to the way the wind scraped against the back of her hut and flowed over the top.

“I thought I heard something,” he said in lieu of an actual greeting.

He sounded confused.

She felt confused.

“Me?” It felt obvious that it would have been her. She was here, and he had heard her. What was confusing about that?

He looked as though he were about to say something else, when she heard an actual familiar voice. It calmed her nerves a bit. Following behind the tall man was Han Solo. She broke out into a grin, and he gave her that characteristic smirk of his.

“There you are, kid. You found her, Ben.” He slapped this Ben on the back. Ben didn’t seem amused by the gesture.

She looked between the two of them, remembering now that Han said he had a son. She didn’t think they looked anything alike, but what did she know about how people were supposed to look in comparison to their parents. Her memory had faded out over what her parents looked like a long time ago.

 

* * *

 

“Master Luke?”

He looked at Rey curiously, as she tugged on his sleeve and lowered her voice to a whisper. She had been uncharacteristically quiet for most of the evening, but it was all a little overwhelming for her. The noise and excitement of the other kids, meeting Senator Leia Organa, but mostly it was Ben Solo that bothered her.

“What is it, Rey?”

How did she put it into words? There was such an immense heaviness that surrounded Ben Solo that she didn’t know how to describe it. It was power, for sure. It was the Force, as if it had come alive inside of him and yet was shoved away into a barrell. It was more than that, like he had a perpetual storm that hovered over him. Did Luke know that? Or maybe it was the fantasy of an imaginative child.

“Why isn’t Ben a student?” was what Rey settled on, her thoughts overwhelming and undeveloped. She couldn’t figure out what to say or how to say it. But that seemed like a reasonable question.

Her master made a soft noise of surprise in the back of his throat, a small smile tugging at his lips. He glanced over at his nephew for a moment, who was far too entranced by whatever he was reading on his datapad to pay attention to the two of them.

“You know, a few people have asked Leia that, too.”

It was as if she had been shot into space. _The_ Leia could have been a Jedi? But wasn’t?

That small smile became a small grin. “Leia felt that her importance was in serving the galaxy the best way she knew how. Ben wasn’t interested in becoming a Jedi, and that was his choice to make. I taught him a few things when he was younger, before there were other students.” He shrugged.

Rey nodded, as if she understood. What she got from that conversation was a kernel that nestled itself into her heart. There had been a choice, and it seemed that Ben’s was the only one that mattered when it came to whether or not the Force should be trained. Because Rey remembered.

She remembered crying and screaming and thrashing against the ship as it had begun to take off from the sandy floor of Jakku. She remembered not wanting to leave, not caring about Jedi or the Force or her considerable power as Master Luke called it. She didn’t care that he thought her amazing, that she was bright and hopeful and had so much potential.

She had cared about her parents and how they couldn’t find her if she was locked away on a temple somewhere else.

Falling silent again, Rey settled on a rock across from Ben Solo and wondered if his choice mattered because of who he was.

He glanced up from his reading only to look straight at her, his face contorted in a look of confusion that echoed his tone from earlier.

She smiled at him and looked away, hoping he hadn’t felt her momentary throb of anger meant for only him. 

It was rude. 

She wasn’t rude.


	2. Part One: Insidious

**27 ABY**

The thing that Rey found delighted her the most about the Force were the threads that seemed to whisper to her when she opened herself to it. She’d been cautioned in the past to not open herself completely. Luke had explained to her that she was a faucet, and sometimes things could come through that she hadn’t meant to let through. He meant the dark side. It was a cautionary tale, a story that was meant to scare them. 

She was scared. Sometimes the threads were in bad taste, the whisper of death or violence that came from the planet or from far off in the galaxy, in places she had never heard of seen. Sometimes, Rey let herself open up until the Force poured through her. 

But only when Luke wasn’t close enough to pick up on it. Only long enough to get a taste before he knew. 

The darkness only came then, when she opened herself up. 

So when she first heard the voice, the slick whisper that held a different weight than the other things she experience, it was when she was asleep. In the morning, she only had the vague sense that she was being watched.

Which was a paranoia that clung to her young skin because of Ben Solo. He seemed to appear out of thin air wherever she was. He seemed to appear even before she arrived, but those times were often accompanied by Luke. If she raised any concerns with him, he would have waved them away as coincidence.

Ben Solo had been a student here, long before she was. How else would he have rejected everything that he was? Those weren’t the words said to her, and she obviously wasn’t going to voice that out loud, but a few of the older students who had been around when Ben was still remembered him. He didn’t seem to get along with them, and although they came up to talk to him, he kept to himself more than anything.

Except for when he stumbled on Rey. 

“Are you following me?” She stood in front of him, hilariously dwarfed, hands on her hips. 

He looked at her in surprise, as if he hadn’t even noticed her at first. 

How could he have not? This was her favorite spot, the quiet thicket behind her hut that he had first stumbled on her at. 

“No?” His brow furrowed, a slight edge to his tone. “You’re the one who keeps staring at me.”

Rey sucked in a breath, her face going flame-hot. “No, I’m not.”

She was. That was more of her embarrassment than being caught staring. Plenty of the students stared at him. It was an uncomfortable feeling at being confronted with the fact that she had been watching him, trying to figure him out, trying to - she wasn’t sure. There was just something there that she wanted to understand, like the engines of the _Millennium Falcon_. 

“Did you know this used to be mine?” Ben gestured to the hut she stayed in. The way he said it almost made it seem like he was _blaming_ her for being out here.

“It’s mine,” she admitted to him. Her whole body had gone hot, and even though it wasn’t her fault she had essentially stolen what was his, that was exactly what she was starting to feel. 

His hut, his uncle, his spot in the Jedi. 

Her lips pursed, and she rejected that particular thread of shame. “It’s mine,” she repeated.

He watched her for a moment, and she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe his was just permanently confused. That wasn’t going to make him a very good senator one day, now would it. She felt that the Senate should understand what was happening out there in the galaxy, and if one little girl was going to throw him off, maybe it just wasn’t for him. 

He took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. “I used to sit back here, too. I felt like it was the best place to hear everything.”

Rey blinked. “What?”

“That’s what you were doing, right?”

“Maybe.”

For the first time since he arrived, she saw what could have been mistaken as a smile quirk over his mouth. It was like a shadow, as if the sun had decided to glare down purposely on his strange face and trick her eyes. 

“You don’t have to tell me. I know that it’s all very private.”

Rey clenched her fists for a moment, watching him back away, as if this was the end of the conversation. And maybe for him, it was. But she was suddenly overwhelmed by her thoughts and questions and that _slickness_ that interrupted her usual quiet contemplation. 

“You came out here to listen, too, didn’t you? I mean, right now. You came here to listen.”

Ben paused. A tension ran through his body, and he was like a kid with his hand in the desserts ahead of time. He glanced over his shoulder at her, not saying anything.

“You can still hear the Force,” Rey continued.

“The Force is always there. Hasn’t my uncle taught you that?”

“So why aren’t you a student anymore?”

He turned this time, to stare down at her. His hands were clenched as well, mirroring her. Her head was tilted back just enough to watch him in return. She’d been around other Force users, including her master, for the last five years. It had never felt like this, like a storm was beginning to brew between them. There was _power_ there, and she knew it wasn’t hers alone. It was the same thing she had felt the first day, when her fingers had slipped from their diligent patterns on her lightsaber.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

This time, when he whipped around and stomped off, much like a child with a tantrum, she let the conversation die. 

She didn’t understand, and she had never felt so much like a child than in that moment. 

* * *

_Ben Solo is weak_ , the voice whispered. 

She wasn’t so sure, either way.

* * *

Rey noticed that her home had changed following the visit of Ben Solo, as if he had tainted everything with his arrival. Where once there had been a stillness to the Force around, it rippled in ways she couldn’t follow. 

He refused to look at or talk to her after their only conversation together, and she wondered if there was something about her that bothered him in the same way. 

Luke faced them, hands clasped together after the ship was gone. The years seemed to melt off of his face, a boyish grin brightening up an already bright man. It was enough to distract Rey from her thoughts, a sense of peace falling over her for a brief moment. 

“We have a lot to do,” he told them all, but his gaze landed on Rey. 

A tightness pulled at her chest. 

Did he know about the turmoil that this visit had brought her?

* * *

“Master Skywalker,” Rey said as they walked to the edge of a cliff. It was where they had their solo practice, a staple of life her at the academy. Some Jedi had different needs than others, and Luke liked to be involved with each of his students. 

“Yes?”

“Why is there something special about me?”

He was silent for a moment, and she could tell that she had caught him off guard. It wasn’t something she had ever asked before, although she knew that there was something different about her. She’d always known that, that she had something more than the other students. Luke treated her that way, too. And even at twelve, she suspected it was exactly why he had practically kidnapped her off of the surface of Jakku.

That, and as the voice whispered to her, and that Luke Skywalker needed to replace his lost nephew, the weak and cowardly Ben Solo. 

“Who am I?” she asked when he couldn’t even answer the first question.

Luke pressed his lips together into a thin line, a thoughtful expression taking over the calmness of his appearance. 

“Do you know who I am?”

“You are Rey.”

That didn’t answer anything for her. 

The Force told her that she was something, a star, a galaxy. She was something that couldn’t be contained. It told her that her master was failing her, unwilling to let her shine too brightly. He had failed Ben Solo, too. 

Rey might not have wanted to come here, she might not have wanted to be ripped away from Jakku before her parents could come back for her, but she didn’t want to fail. 

“I don’t know that that’s answer,” she muttered, nudging a rock with the toe of her boot. 

He gave her that soft, sweet smile he always wore when an answering wasn’t satisfactory. His hand touched her shoulder, warm and firm. “I can’t give you that answer.”

_He can_ , the whisper said. It was the first time she had heard it without the vestiges of sleep. _He won’t_. 


	3. Part One: Insidious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a double update? whaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> featuring a pov switch, takes place during the ending of Bloodline by Claudia Gray.

**28 ABY**

What people remember just as much as the revelation was not the way that Leia Organa carried herself as she stepped forward to confirm that she was, indeed, the daughter of Darth Vader. Not once had she stopped to glance toward her son as he barrelled down on Senator Ransolm Casterfo with all the grace of a very angry wampa. 

No, what people remembered was his anger, the rage that had filled Ben Solo’s face as he reached out for the older senator with fire in his eyes and poison on his tongue. They remembered that Ben Solo hadn’t even touched Ransolm Casterfo, gripping him instead with the Force that had for so long terrorized their galaxy under the hands of his grandfather and master. 

Leia did not register her son’s actions. She confronted her accuser with poise and calming hands and a chin lifted and shoulders back like a princess. 

But they remember the shockwave that was Ben Solo.

And they remember that they are the descendants of Darth Vader. 

* * *

A sofa--a very expensive gift--slammed into the wall, and split into three pieces. His mother stood at the opposite end of her room, leaning back against her desk and watching him with a dispassionate frown. Ben seethed, not sure if because of her response but because of what - of this -

How did he process it?

_Darth Vader_.

His mother was the daughter of Darth Vader.

His uncle.

“Does Father know?” Ben spat at her.

Now there was emotion, now there was a thread of worry that darkened her eyes and slumped her shoulders. He could see the tension that ran through her body otherwise, as if she couldn’t decide whether she was going to stand like durasteel or crumple as easily as cloth. 

“Ben--”

“You all knew.” The droids? Chewbacca? His Uncle Chewbacca knew, didn’t he? And he had hid this from Ben his entire life, as if Ben didn’t have a right to know? Chewbacca, who had always been brutally honest?

“We didn’t--”

_“What?”_ He reached out for a third of the couch and squeezed, watching it splinter. For someone who had tried to deny his power for most of his life, there was a finesse of control there. Maybe it was because of the small bit of training he had gone through. Maybe it was because he was the grandson of Darth Vader himself. Who knew, now. “You didn’t think that I deserved to know long before this? Did you not think I could _handle_ it, Mother?”

Leia gave a very pointed look to her destroyed furniture. “Do I really need to answer that for you?”

A wave of shame swept through him. 

“I think that I have earned this moment, considering me - and the _entire galaxy_ \- just learned at the same time.” Ben took a step toward her, a finger pointed like a sword in her direction. “I was out there--”

“Making yourself look like a fool. Your anger got the best of you, Ben.”

How could she be so calm? Not only had her career been destroyed in so few words, but a friend had betrayed her, her son had made himself a spearpoint of why their family could not be trusted (he knew how politics ran, especially in these circles where each side attempted to discredit the other). With a growl, he ran his fingers wildly through his hair, wishing to tear it out. 

Once, a long time ago, a voice had whispered to him that there was darkness in his heart. Today, he had seen that darkness and what it could become. Today, he understood what that voice meant.

And it was why he had walked away from his Uncle Luke’s academy. His mother was strong in the Force. It was hard to not feel that as a Force user as it was, and even now, she had it wrapped around her like a comforting blanket. In comparison, his whipped out furiously, like the tentacles of a sarlacc. Ben had been afraid of the darkness he carried, and he had been afraid of what it spoke to him of. 

Even now, there was a faint thread, as if he was being tugged somewhere. 

And below that, a thread of worry. It felt like a small hand reaching out to briefly touch his before he shook his head and took a calming breath. He hadn’t heard the voice in years, and he wasn’t about to let it back in now. Not after all the hard work he had done. 

“What do we do now?” Ben asked his mother, praying she had the answers they all needed.

She approached her son with a soft and sad smile, pressing a hand to his cheek. He leaned into it, letting his mother’s love wash over her. 

“Ask what you need to know,” she told him. They couldn’t go forward until he was resolved with what had happened, and she knew it. He hated that he couldn’t leap over hurdles as easily. 

“How long have you known?”

“A long time.”

A long time could have meant anything, but it was… satisfactory enough, he supposed. “Anakin Skywalker?”

“They are one and the same.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.” He knew about the details of the war. As a child, he had devoured every datapad, holovid, and war buddy talks he could manage to get his hands on. He knew about his mother’s adventures. Without another word, he folded his mother into an embrace. 

Physical expression wasn’t exactly his forte, except for his few and far between “tantrums”, but he needed this comfort as much as his mother did. She melted into him, and he let her anchor him back down. 

“We should have told you.”

“Learning this way wasn’t quite ideal,” he agreed. “You should have trusted me.”

She stilled in his arms, and he could only imagine the many diplomatic responses she could come up with. “You’re right,” she told him. 

“I wasn’t a very good politician,” Ben said.

“There are other things.” Leia gave him a quick squeeze before stepping back so she could look up at him. “There’s trouble brewing, and we still have to follow up on our leads.”

“Nobody is going to talk to us.” 

She winked. “Of course they will. I’m still Leia Organa.”

* * *

Ben sat on the edge of his bed, unfolding the apprentice robes that he had carefully wrapped around the lightsaber he had built when he was younger. Perhaps he had been too young, but he had been eager and strong in the Force, and there were very few things at that age that could be denied to him. He had been, well, happier then. He heard what they called him now: broody, quick to anger, passionate. He had even heard some of the more _brutal_ things since the reveal of Darth Vader a week earlier. 

So much had happened in such a short time. They would be leaving from Hosnian Prime for Sibensko soon. 

It had brought him here.

He was not a Jedi. He had rejected that path and pursued politics as his mother had, hoping to have found a place by her side. There was a fondness attached to a memory of his father bemoaning his existence when Ben had insisted. 

There would be no more Senate for him. If they didn’t trust Leia Organa, they would never trust Ben Solo. Especially after nearly taking the throat out of Ransolm Casterfo. He didn’t have politics, and while he got along decently with his father, the idea of stepping into his boots left him with a bland taste in his mouth.

All he would have left is the Jedi.

Carefully, he ran a finger down the length of the lightsaber. 

There would be time after this secret mission to figure it out, he supposed. There would be time to decide whether or not his uncle would take him back. Perhaps now, with the truth lodged deep in his heart, he could defeat Anakin Skywalker’s dark legacy and not become what the voice told him he would. He would not become his grandfather.

With a sigh, Ben wrapped the lightsaber back up, placed it back into its chest, and slid it under his bed. He wouldn’t need it, anyway.

* * *

Leia held his hand. The small group had dispersed by now, ready to make plans to leave Hosnian Prime for good, ready to speak with others. 

Ben blinked, glancing down at her small hand in his. “What is it?”

“I never thought I would have to do this again,” she said with a sad smile. He knew she was still thinking of Ransolm’s arrest, that it weighed heavily against her chest. 

His thoughts were with the First Order instead, and how the Senate could have so easily overlooked those who would come back to power. You had to kill a weed at the root, and they decided to forget the root. His mother was included in that. 

“You have the experience, at least. We’ll need that.”

She patted the back of his hand with her free one. “I know you were thinking of rejoining Luke--”

Ben shook his head. “There’ll be time for that later.”

There was a dark cloud that was smothering the galaxy. He could recognize that now. 

It terrified him. There was darkness in his heart, in his power, and in his ancestry. Ben wouldn’t sacrifice what he had achieved for himself just to hone his talents. There would be other ways that he could benefit the Resistance.

For a moment, though, when he thought of the Jedi’s help, he didn’t think of his uncle. He thought of the girl he had met. It had been awhile since he had thought of her, the way her power had felt next to his. For some time after leaving the academy, she was a persistent thought he couldn’t rid himself of. Her accusations, her anger that felt so much like his own in some ways. 

Rey. 

Her name was Rey.

The voice had grown so much more quiet then, had all but disappeared, after he had met her. It was a silly thought for a grown man, but he thought she had soothed his fears for a time, like a balm. 

So when he thought of the Jedi in that moment, he thought of Rey.

_Ben._

“Hm?” He looked at his mother, eyebrows raised. 

But she was preoccupied with her datapad, her hand having slipped from his while he had been lost in thought.


	4. Part One: Insidious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, sorry for the delay in updates. i've been going through a family tragedy and trying to deal with it <3

**28 ABY**

Shadra was a couple of years older than Rey herself, a Zabrak orphan that Luke had rescued when she was much younger. They were friends, but there were times when those two whole years made Shadra act like she was infinitely older and wiser than Rey herself. And for the most part, Rey accepted that. Two years did seem like it held more promise to it, more experience for wisdom. 

“The twins are gone,” Shadra told her over a breakfast of what Rey could only describe as “nutritional mush”. 

She shoved the spoon into her mouth, both eyebrows raised. The twins, Pyrene and Vitaan, were trouble. Not because of the dark side, but because of money. They were the children of some senator or general, something like that. Rey tried to not spend too much time around them. They had Force abilities, but she could tell they had no real skill behind their power, and they were definitely used to having money buy them what they wanted. Despite all that, she was surprised they would have left. They were more excited about the prospect of being _named_ Jedi than actually _being_ a Jedi.

“Why?” A curiosity had taken control.

“You haven’t heard?”

Rey shook her head. Shadra enjoyed that, when she knew something that Rey didn’t, and it didn’t bother her to play into her friend’s need for such superiority.

Shadra glanced around them, making sure that nobody was listening. It made it seem like this was a secret, and _that_ only stoked the fires of her curiosity. She leaned in closer, spoon forgotten in the mush. Shadra’s voice dropped to a whisper. 

“Master Luke’s father was Darth Vader.”

A pit of ice settled in Rey’s stomach. There was a small part of her that wanted to vehemently reject this news. That seemed - wrong. Were they talking about the same Master Luke? _Their_ master? The one who told them to reject the dark, that all were worthy of the light?

But that dark whisper that had been her constant companion for a year now, the Force that lived inside of her, told her it was real. 

“Their parents took them home?” Rey finally asked.

Shadra nodded. “Nobody’s going to want their children being taught by the son of Darth Vader. I heard that Princess Leia even lost her _job_.”

That ice became sunken, and Rey felt herself pulling in a million different directions all at one time. 

“We don’t have to worry about that, though, huh?” Shadra knocked her shoulder into Rey’s. “Our parents aren’t going to care.”

There was a pain in her heart, although she knew it wasn’t a _real_ pain. Her parents would care. They would rescue her from here if they could, if they just _knew_ where she was. They would take her into their arms and tell Luke Skywalker off and declare that no son of evil would teach their daughter. 

Rey shoveled the breakfast into her mouth and didn’t say anything more. 

* * *

The twins weren’t the last ones to be whisked away. Two more kids had been taken home, one a young boy who screamed to be allowed to stay. It only fueled Rey’s anger more, that darkness that threaded its way through her veins as much as the Force did. His parents _wanted him to be safe_. Why would anyone throw that away?

She felt guilty immediately after, split between being angry that people didn’t want to accept their parents’ protectiveness and the idea that the children whisked away and the children who stayed had such few choices. 

Luke was somber in those few weeks after the news came out, but he didn’t let that interfere with their learning. He sat them down, and he told them the truth of it all. He told them that the Force was forgiving because it was everything. 

_He’s afraid_ , the voice said.

The voice liked to talk about the cowardice of the Skywalker clan. 

Her dreams had taken a more violent turn, as if the turmoil of the situation tainted even that. Sometimes, she dreamed of Ben. The voice seemed pleased, even as it spoke terribly of the man that was more of a distant memory at this point. 

_He’s afraid_ , Rey thought. It was about Ben. She wasn’t sure why, in that moment, she thought about him. She just knew that he was afraid, a real and palpable fear that wasn’t anything like her master’s. 

_Rey_. 

“Rey,” Luke said. 

She blinked, and the world came back into focus, sliding into place again. Sets of eyes had all turned her way, and her face grew hot. 

“Present.”

A titter of laughter, and she gave her master a lopsided grin. She hoped to disarm him so he wouldn’t guess at her thoughts. This was what their relationship had become, her desperately hoping he didn’t see the growing treachery in her heart. But now, as he tended to do these days, he watched her. 

He gave her a smile, that kriffing smile, soft and pliable. It didn’t reach his eyes. 

“I couldn’t tell,” Luke said to her. 

“You see me.”

“I see a body,” he countered. Now there was a light in his blue eyes that put her more at ease. She hadn’t realized how tense she was until he turned to the other students. “Dark times are coming.”

“Why?” another student asked, one younger than Rey herself.

Luke rubbed a hand across the beard on his chin. “Mostly because people can’t let go of the past, I think.”

Rey blinked and tried to not take the words to heart. He didn’t look at her. The words weren’t directed at her. It didn’t stop the trepidation crawling across her body like ice. She wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling her legs in closer to her, as if she could warm herself back up again. 

“What’s important now is that we don’t lose sight of who _we_ are,” Luke continued. With his mechanical hand, he gestured to the students who still remained. “We are the light.”

She bit her lip as a few of them nodded with gusto. They were the light. Dark times were coming. What did all of that mean? Would there be another war on the horizon? Would they be called on to fight? She wasn’t even sure what any of that meant. She knew of the war. Jakku was pockmarked with the old war. 

Was there an actual darkness out there?

Even as she thought that, she knew it was true. There was always darkness out there, as if it couldn’t be willed away because one Jedi said so. Darkness knew where to crawl and hide, how to creep along the edges of the light. She had felt it, even before the voice that had become her constant companion. She felt it in the universe, in the Force, inside of herself.

She knew it lingered inside of Ben Solo, which was an unsettling thought to harbor for someone she had met all of one time.

She lifted her eyes to Luke Skywalker as he reassured his group of students. 

“What about your darkness?”

It was her voice. She knew that even as she spoke, but she hadn’t meant to say anything. There it was, though, tumbling out of her mouth without warning. 

Everyone stilled, turning toward her again. There were no laughs this time. Some looked uncomfortable, she noticed, when she glanced back at them. Some angry. But she locked gazes with Shadra and knew her friend had the same question burning inside of her. 

“You’re the son of Darth Vader,” Shadra said. “How do we know what you’re teaching us _is_ the light?”

He pressed his lips together. “You don’t.”

A few of the older kids shifted. 

“The light is something you’re going to have to choose. It’s something you’re going to have find and choose for yourself, but I’m hoping I can show you the right way.”

Shadra frowned, leaning forward. Rey waited with a bated breath to see if she would say any more, but she didn’t. There was a feeling coming from her friend that was different that had been before: mistrust. 

“I am a Jedi,” he said. “I hope you all will be, too.” He folded his hands, one metal, one flesh. “Class is dismissed for today. I want you all to think about your place here at the academy.”

* * *

Rey knew she was divided, even before Luke’s assignment to contemplate their places. She wanted to learn, because she understood the power at her fingertips. Or understood them as best as she possibly could for a 13-year-old. She wanted her family, waiting for her out there somewhere. Maybe on Jakku. 

Her place here was her only choice until she was free. 

_No_ , the voice whispered. _You have another choice_. 

And Luke Skywalker would not be her destiny, she decided.


	5. Part One: Insidious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, i'm baaaaack! sorry for the little break i took off, but i am ready to roll
> 
> ALSO
> 
> maaaan check out this [little doodle](http://naridoodles.tumblr.com/post/169062580258/two-chapters-in-and-im-already-100-down-for) from chapter two ft. baby rey and ben by the lovely naridoodles @ tumblr
> 
> so good, so fantastic

**28 ABY**

Life did not continue on as usual with Luke Skywalker. There was a shift in the air, and Rey knew it didn’t have everything to do with the revelation of her master’s parentage. That seemed to so distant in comparison to the uncertainty that accompanied the idea of war. The older students talked about it in an almost whimsical manner. They would be old enough to be _real_ Jedi, and the Jedi would be needed to fight. 

Rey thought that there were so few of them, they would all end up in war. She didn’t want war. At least, she didn’t think she wanted war. She remembered the husks that littered the floor on Jakku, memories of the last war. Scars, really. 

But she dreamed of battle. She dreamed of fighting and tearing armies apart. She could taste her own power, felt it living and breathing right next to her. There was an exhilaration in those dreams that made her long for them. There was a purpose in those dreams. Reality wasn't a dream, though, and when she woke up, there was shame that quickly followed the need.

Rey couldn't tell what was her anymore. Were these her own thoughts, her own dreams? Did she desire power? 

Not really. She didn't know much about what she wanted, but she knew that what she wanted most was to belong.

She didn't belong _here_.

There were other dreams. More real, and not at the same time. These tasted of the Force, but they weren't like visions. In them, she would be piloting, racing through stars with other ships closing in on her. The adrenaline was hers, the excitement, the fear. And it wasn't hers at the same time. She would be fed them down a line, but when she got too close, she'd wake up.

_I can give you that._

She wasn't sure what part of it. She just wanted to be let in to the other side. 

_You can have that, with me._

She yawned, balling up her fists and rubbing them into her eyes. 

_Luke cannot give you what you are seeking._

Family, belonging, the other side. The thoughts swirled around in her head. She wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep, not like this. 

* * *

**29 ABY**

Rey watched as Shadra disappeared around one of the huts, trying to blend into the darkness of their surroundings as best as she could. Something was up. Something was always up around here, especially these days. Training became more intense, more focused. Luke Skywalker was not as loose as he had been years ago. He always looked tired now, dark circles under his eyes. His hair was touched by more gray. She knew he was old, but he had never properly looked it. 

The older students did, too, those that left for days at a time and came back feeling hollow. 

Shadra had been one of the students. Angry and sullen, she hadn’t talked to Rey for days upon her return, and even then, their only conversation had been her friend snapping at her to get lost. 

It had been a lot more painful to Rey than she wanted to admit to anyone, but the voice knew. The voice always knew what she was feeling, what she was thinking. He cared, but she didn’t really believe that. He knew that, too.

Biting her lip, she carefully made her way over to where she had seen her friend go. Without any lights, it was almost impossible to see, but she latched on to the Force that leaked from not just Shadra but a group of others. She had wondered if maybe this had been something private, but she realized she was stumbling on top of something else. 

There were five others, besides Shadra. Most of them were older than Rey herself, but one was younger. 

“You have a tag-along,” an Aqualish boy muttered. He pointed to Rey, silhouetted by the shadows.

Shadra glanced over her shoulder and sighed. “I told you we should have waited until she was asleep.”

Joke was on them, Rey barely ever slept. She was starting to look as haggard as their master. 

“What’s going on?” she asked.

They were silent. She didn’t know, but it felt as though she _did._ Balling her fists up, she stepped closer to the group. It wasn’t meant to be threatening, she didn’t think she was intimidating as a person, but they all shared flickering glances of uncertainty between them.

A frown tugged the corners of Shadra’s mouth down deeply. “Master Luke.”

“Yes?” Rey asked. Her head tilted.

_They’re angry_.

But they were always angry these days. 

_They hate_.

That was - different. They hated, and she wasn’t sure that was allowed. It went against the Jedi doctrine, didn’t it? But then again, so did anger. So did touching the dark side of the Force. 

“He hides here while he sends us to fight for him,” another of the group said.

“He can’t leave us here,” Rey countered.

“So he sends children to fight instead?”

“We’re Jedi.”

“Are we?”

Rey fell quiet. A swirl of emotions touched her, opened her up to her connections. She was confused, because they weren’t wrong, but she knew their master didn’t want to do this. The voice was there, the entity that kept whispering of the Skywalker cowardice, and he wasn’t wrong. He’d never been wrong, and she knew that as a fact. Luke Skywalker was a hero, and heroes should be fighting. 

But something quieter was in the background, behind her noise and the voice’s noise and the noise of her fellow students. 

_Don’t_.

One word. 

She wasn’t sure what it meant, but she couldn’t ask. 

“He’s going to send you, too,” Shadra finally said. She reached out, taking Rey’s hand. “You’re strong, Rey. We all know that.”

_You’ll never be ready. He can’t teach you what I can. You’ll be killed_.

* * *

She watched Luke Skywalker over the next several months. He wasn’t a bad man. He was a tired man, with the weight of the galaxy watching him. And she could see him crumbling. 

Seven of them met in darkness, once a month. 

“I know where we can go,” Rey told them. 

Eyes watched her. 

“I know where we can go where we won’t be used by the Resistance.”

_Don’t_.

* * *

It wasn’t personal. Luke Skywalker had tried, with all of them. And he had failed all of them, even the ones who could not be persuaded. The voice told her they couldn’t be, that they were as weak as her master was. It wasn’t personal, but Rey knew that the legacy of the Jedi had to be stopped. They were weak and cowardly, and she could not let them be what stopped her. 

* * *

Supreme Leader Snoke welcomed them onto his ship. Rey led them. She knew there was dissent among the six of them on that front, but this was what Snoke had wanted. It had been her the entire time. She was the one who had brought them here, she was the one who had given them the purpose that they had lost with Skywalker. 

The voice in her head didn’t look as how she expected him to. He was folded and melted, like a person who had been made and remade over and over again. She shielded those thoughts now, though, pushing down on that connection. How had he found her? Did he hear her searching the Force all those years ago? Had he always been waiting for her? He said so, but she wasn’t sure she could believe him. If Luke Skywalker could fail her, so could he. 

And if she was being honest, the voice at the end of the thread had always held a different face for her. 

But Snoke had called him a coward too.

“My Knights.” He had a ghoulish grin and a shivering voice. His hands spread. “Welcome.”

Rey knelt first.


End file.
